[sic]

With our tenant Joe’s unexpected and sudden demise almost two weeks ago and the subsequent cleaning out of his belongings being completed by his brother yesterday I finally got a chance to get up there and take a good look around.

Susan I had initially planned on cleaning it up and renting it out for at least double if not near triple what the rent had been (Joe’d lived here since 1986), but on further review we’ve decided not to have to bother with all that and instead go ahead with our ultimate plan of reclaiming the space to the house by reconnecting the first floor to the second with an interior staircase and turning the 3 rooms, 2 half-baths and sliver of a kitchen up there into a master suite.

Flickr photoset of those thumbnails is here.

It’s gonna be a long, expensive process but so worth it to have the house all to ourselves and so much sooner than we’d expected.

And so it was that a crew of five of us set out with about 40 fresh and piping hot burritos on last night’s revitalization of the dormant Hollywood Burrito Project ride and we learned that no good deed goes unpunished. We headed up Western Avenue where first I flatted my rear tire after nailing the sharp lip of a deep pothole between Melrose and Santa Monica. After innertubes were swapped and the new one inflated we found our next obstacle in the form of haggard, wild-eyed antagonistic Buddy Ebsen-looking transient bastard who arrived from across the street as we were passing out food to the six or seven homeless encamped at the Big Lots! store on Vine Street a couple blocks south of Sunset.

“What are you doing?” he demanded to know. “Are you bothering these people?” As if he was their guardian or some such shit.

“No,” I told him, “we’re just giving them something to eat.”

“Something to eat?” He inquired sarcastically.

“Yeah, burritos.” I held one out to him. “Would you like one?” He took it from me, but instead of it having any sort of calming effect on him, instead it set him off.

“A burrito?” he said it like I’d just handed him a used tissue. “Is that it?” Taken aback that someone would be so willing to bite the hand that literally feeds them, none of us said anything.

“Really? A burrito? That’s all you’ve got?” He looked at the people laying on the cement against the storefront bundled as best they could against the chill of the night — all of whom were appreciative of what we offered them. “These people probably eat better than all of you and all you give them is a burrito?”

Let me preface the short remainder of the post with the point that it was obvious to me that there would be no winning the argument this idiot was making — and a hypocritical idiot at that given that he accepted the burrito I gave him and when I indignantly asked for it back from the ingrate he refused to give it. Instead with an abject lack of regard of the good — however little — we were doing and the efforts we were making, he insisted that we “sell our bikes” and give the money to the poor.

At some point I finally ramped my own sarcasm and stepped up to thank him for the insulting buzzkill he was providing, and immediately after came a chorus of voices from the people prone before us who clearly did not share his warped point of view and instead thanked and blessed us profusely for our kindness.

Heading away from the jerk I pointed out that we’d be back next Wednesday if he wanted another burrito and to bitch at us some more, then I suggested to the crew that it might be high time to introduce the Knuckle Sandwich Project to the area.

I upset Susan yesterday when I told her how on the ride home last night after hearing something deragatory shouted at me I doubled back on my bike to the four kids all wearing white t-shirts and blue jeans sitting at the bus stop at Washington and West boulevards.

Susan does not like when I do things like this, and would probably rather not hear about them. I would hazard most people won’t think it a very wise decision. But I did it, arriving beside the bench where without any hostility I begged their pardon but I didn’t quite hear what had been shouted at me.

The oldest and tallest of the bunch asked back “What do you think I said?”

“It sounded like you said ‘Get your bike off the road.’”

And the four of them snickered.

“If that’s not what you said, what was it?”

And they didn’t answer. So I looked at the oldest and tallest of the quartet and I asked “You don’t think bikes belong on the streets?”

He asked “What?” and I repeated and he looked at me pointedly and said “No I don’t think bikes belong on the streets, but I didn’t tell you to get your bike off the road.”

“Well, what did you tell me?”

He moved his head in a big indignant circle and said, “I said ‘You lost the race!’”

And then the youngest and the smallest turned to me and said “And he called you a faggot!” The two middle-sized cackled too hard.

And the oldest and the tallest sternly told the youngest and the smallest “Don’t make me come over there and comb your hair!” and then to me he said “I didn’t say ‘faggot.” I said “You lost the race, buddy!”

“What race are you talking about?” I asked and he just shrugged his shoulders.

“He called you a faggot!” the youngest and the smallest looked right at me and said.

“Whether he did or not,” I said, “you’re the one calling me one now, aren’t you?” and she giggled and turned away.

“Look,” I said, “Not that you give a damn, but I’ve been jacked up, put down, crowded out, hemmed in, yelled to, spit on, thrown at and all because I’m on a bike trying to get from point A to point B. And you disrespecting me either with what I think I heard or what you say you said is just the cherry on top of a big scoop of bullshit.”

The oldest and the tallest as well as the two middle-sized listened pretty intently and were silent when I finished my little diatribe, but the youngest and the smallest waited a beat then yelled out “faggot!” again, and they all laughed and I knew it wasn’t just a mistake turning around but a lost cause trying to talk common sense with these overgrown toddlers in baggy denims and bus passes.

“Stupid me: You win!” I said and that stopped their braying and they watched as I pulled my bike past them to the corner, down the disabled access apron and back onto the road.

“I should have known better than to waste your valuable time, but it’s kind of funny you calling me the loser when I’m the one going where and how I want to and you’re the one sitting here going nowhere hoping for a bus.”

And the two middle-sized went “Ooooooooo!” as if allotting me a consolation point and I said “Enjoy the wait, kids” and  got rolling. Halfway down the block the oldest and the tallest yelled something at my back that sounded spiteful but I couldn’t make out and in return I gave him back my own special version of the peace sign as I continued down the road.

In the time it took me to get to Vermont no bus had passed me.

Keeping in mind that I’m the type of guy who’s done both the bike tour and the marathon in the past (2003, 2005 and 2007), it shouldn’t surprise you — or at least not for very long — what’s been percolating in my head since my personal-best breaking 61-minute cannonball run of the bike tour’s course yesterday — and no it does not involve the marathon.

What it does involve is riding the bike tour course a second time. Seriously! Basically the first time out I’d try like hell to beat this year’s time and grab my medal somewhere about an hour later on the westside of the coliseum. Then I’d justcome back around to the start line on Figueroa on the east side of the coliseum and haz me some seconds at a much more relaxed and casual and enjoyable pace.

I could be done with the second lap by 8:15, before they start sweeping riders onto bail-out routes. Totally!

Ranger, being the good first-alert dog that she is brought me out of me sleep with two insistent barks, but when all remained quiet after that, I drifted back off until another got my feet onto the hardwood to find her on the club chair in the library looking out the west window, tail wagging back and forth like a windshield wiper. I stepped beside her and scanned out and around the dark street. Nothing.

Then I looked and saw the furry, hunched over form on the porch railing and an audible “Wow!” escaped me for their sat the mightiest raccoon of them all. I grabbed my camera and moved to the foyer trying to pull some kind of image of the thing in the dark and through the window glass (above’s was the best of that bunch).

When it was finally alerted to my presence I moved to the front door and it clambered slowly down the rail to the porch floor where I allowed it to move across the threshold before yanking open the door, where it then did the coolest thing. Instead of running away down the steps, it climbed back up to the top of the railing and came back across threshold to the pergola above the porch where it shimmied up and out of sight onto the roof of the house.

So of course sporting nothing more than a pair of boxers, my camera and some questionable judgment, I exited the house, climbed up on the porch bench (making sure to turn on the flash), poked my head up through the top of the pergola and found him hangin’ out casual some more on the roof where I managed to snap these other three shots (the far left one being an obvious fave and most indicative of his massive scale; all click to quadruplify):

Eventually it trudged up to the top of the roof and I have no idea where it went. I swear this big fella would have fit snuggly in a large laundry basket. What a treat to behold and to get images of, even if it did abbreviate my shut-eye time.

Our first and only other raccoon encounter is posted here.

(click to triplify)

Isn’t it funny how we forget about stuff. I was cruising through the back end of the ridiculous amount of photos I have online at Flickr, and these two Santa Cruz island foxes showed up, bringing back a flood of good memories of the days I spent in November 2004 with a crew of docents from the Los Angeles Zoo. We were there as guests of the Nature Conservancy and as part of their island fox recovery program our purpose was to assemble captive breeding pens for the island’s decimated island fox population.

In looking further around my Flickr stream I was disturbed that this was pretty much the only photo from the excursion. What had happened to the others? Had they been deleted? OMGWTF? Then, from the cobwebby recesses of my memory I pulled out the recollection that I never uploaded any to Flickr. I put them up on shutterfly.com because back then I was all into making keepsake books for my photos. Here’s the link if you want to check it out. Or you can view a slideshow of all the photos here.

It was a remarkable experience and I’m glad not only that I was reminded of it, but relieved that I was able to remember where I’d stored the memories.

At the gathering of last weekend’s Watts Happening II Ride, friend, Blogdowntowner and fellow IAAL•MAF’er Eric Richardson told me just enough about the Los Angeles Baseball League tryouts he’s planning on attending this coming Sunday morning at L.A. Valley College to get me thinking I’m a-gonna go as well.

I know: sillysauce. Especially since Eric has high school baseball experience to draw from, and is something like 20 years younger than I am. But still: there’s something about the thought of playing BASE BALL (said the way deep and reverent way James Earl Jones does “Bull Durham”) that just gets me going.

But if I do (and it’s still a bit of an “if”), first I gotta hit the batting cages one evening this week — the nearest of which I believe is the Batcade on Victory near Olive in Burbank. There used to be a place on Colorado out in Glendale but I think it’s loooong gone. The only other one I’m familiar with is at the Sherman Oaks Castle miniature golf place on Sepulveda Boulevard.

But before that I have to locate my baseball bat that’s sat in a variety of closets since the last time I played in an adult baseball league, which would be the summer of 1994… with my wholly unremarkable season cut mercifully short by my motorcycle accident that July.

I do not lie when I call the season unremarkable. I think the only reason I got bumped up from the free agent pool (a league’s equivalent of wannabes and wallflowers) to a team  was because I exhibited some type of lumbering hustle on the field to make up for a lack of skill and experience that perhaps someone in authority found endearing. It also helped during my batting tryout when I hit a couple deep flies and then flat out lucked into connecting solidly with a 60 mph (at best) toss from a pitching machine that I put over the right field fence at the Pierce College ballfield, which made someone mistake me for someone who could actually hit — or at least do so consistently. Seven or eight games into the season I think I got on base three times. Four counting one walk. Hey, a walk’s as good as a hit!

My cleats and mitt aren’t quite so old or dormant as the bat, I last used those playing softball in 1996 or ‘97. But I don’t know exactly where they’re stored either.  And I know for a fact that my baseball pants are long gone, finally falling victim to a clothing purge of a couple years ago. And my throwing arm? Let’s just say if anyone’s got a spare southpaw model lying around — or hell even just a decent left rotator cuff — I’ll take it. I retired mine around the same time I sent those pants to Goodwill, not by choice but rather necessity.

But still, with all that going against me I’m still thinking I’m going to dust off my love of the game and get out there and potentially humiliate myself. Eric and I are of the same mind in regards to the open tryouts: they don’t cost nothin’.

Except maybe a little self respect.

Gorgeous tulips on Main Street.
(click to quadruplify)

Disneyland was magically delicious. Sure it was wet and gray, but it was a wonderful experience. It took us an unheard of straight-shot 30 minutes to go from our Silver Lake garage to their Anaheim garage (a monstrocity that did not exist when I was last there more than a fifth of a century ago), and while the line-up at the inbound tram portended of larger-than-expected crowds, once we made our way into the park (with our online-purchased tix) and got a bite to eat in Tomorrowland we were on our way to the amusements in the following order and with waits of no more than 25 minutes: Space Mountain (as seen at right) via a post-ride crappy snap of the monitor showing Susan and I in the front car racing enthusiastically around the galaxy; click to biggify), Star Tours, Matterhorn, the Frontierland firing range, Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Carribean, Haunted Mansion, Indiana Jones, and The Enchanted Tiki Room. Gladly, Small World was closed for renovations. Sadly, so was the Jungle Cruise.

After some souvenir shopping we somewhat forlornly said our farewells to the magical kingdom and by the time we were back in the truck and on the northbound 5 Freeway it was time for the Superbowl’s opening kickoff and the Giants opening drive for a field goal as sent via Sirius radio.

Disneyland photoset is here on Flickr. Susan’s is here.

We got home with the Patsies leading 7-3 and watched the rest of the incredible (and unfathomably low-scoring) game from behind buffalo wings and Susan’s homemade guac and bottles of Fat Tire ale (napping during halftime with… Tom Pettyzzzzzzzzzz?) until that fantastic moment when The Kid somehow avoided that sack and went sandlot-style in heaving the pig in a big all-or-nothing arc that came down on receiver David Tyree who somehow circus-caught the sumbitch with his brain bucket and Eli was saying I CAN HAZ DESTINY?

Nailbiting notwithstanding, I had a funny feeling New England’s preordained perfect season was doomed. And by funny feeling I mean ecstatic and elated. And by doomed I mean LOOOOOOSEEEEEERZ! And that Pats Coach Billygoat? Totally bad time management — and by that I mean classless soreloserface buffoon — leaving the sideline to congratz Coach Coughlin and exit the stage with 00:01 on the clock instead of backing his ass up to the sideline and letting the last obligatory and academic Giants play be run.

But it was quickly forgotten in the on-camera emotions of Giants receiver Plaxico Buress and the smiles of Michael Strahan, Coach Coughlin, and most of all Eli “The Man” Manning. Congrats to all the Giants — extraspecially the DEFENSE for playing such a monumental part in going out and taking what few wanted them to have or thought they could get.

Superbowl? What Superbowl? Rain? What rain?

Susan and I are on a mission to answer the hours-old question: “How many people on the day of the biggest sports and television event of the year and in decidedly uninviting meteorological conditions go to freakin’ Disneyland!?”

Se ya on the other side!

You’re gonna wanna click the above
Eureka Dunes panorama thumbnail

First off props to my beloved Susan because I gotta say it takes a special woman who says “hell yeah!” when I tell her that I want to drive out to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night with our two dogs and spend the following day next to a the biggest pile of sand in California and then come home the day after that.

It was sooo worth it. Five and a half hours spent Friday night rolling up the 14 to the 395 to Big Pine and then the 168 up, up, up winding roads dodging brazen jackrabbits until going down, down, down to where the pavement ran out then dodging even more jackrabbits until we found the turn off for Eureka Dunes and 10 miles later we pulled into the deserted campground, stepped outside into the blessedly still but chilly (but not as bad as we’d expected) 1:30 a.m. air under as many stars as there are grains of sand in the dunes and decided we’d save the tent pitching for daylight and sleep in the car.

Four and a half hour later we were up with the dawn and it was even colder (but still wonderfully windless and deserted), and soon the coffee was percolating on the campstove and coyotes were yipping somewhere unseen in the distance and then the sun popped up over the eastern mountains and immediately began warming things up and we had breakfast of corned beef hash, bacon and eggs and as we raised the tent we openly wondered if we’d somehow lucked into getting the entire monstrously magnificent Eureka Valley to ourselves.

A short time later we had our first lookeloo: a fella in a sedan pulled out to take a couple photos and move on and by 11:30 it was still all ours ours ours and decidedly in the low 80s and gorgeous and so Susan and Ranger and Shadow and I hit the dunes. We didn’t make it to the 700-foot top, opting instead to romp around up to about 400 feet or so before heading back for ice-cold Coronas at camp and a nap that was disturbed occasionally by the passing trains of two-wheeled and four-wheeled offroaders, the latter stopping long enough to be overheard saying “That’s some impressive freakin’ dunes” before heading off.

At sunset we had a couple visiting pairs of people who parked nearby and made quickout and back trips onto the sand before coming back to their vehicles and leaving.

We did end up with a neighboring camp, but they had the fine sense to set up about a half mile down the road. As darkness fell, we got the fire going and had a great dinner of steaks and veggies and cheap red wine bought at the Stater Bros. market in Mojave. Afterward we marveled at a couple of bats and their acrobatics through our camp picking off moths drawn to our lanterns.

I tried my hand at several five and 10-minute timelapses of the starry skies but after losing patience I joined Susan and the dogs in the tent and appropriately bundled up we were all asleep or getting there by 7:30 p.m.

Up again at 6 a.m. to another phenomenally windless and glorious day I got a morning campfire going and coffee brewing. After breakfast Ranger and I had another romp to about the dunes’ 250 foot elevation, then came back to break camp with Shadow while Susan and Ranger headed out for one last visit to the sandy stuff.

We were packed and on our way by 10 a.m. as planned, leaving us enough time for a sidetrip to the Manzanar Interment Camp off 395 outside of Lone Pine. By 4 p.m. we were home to find all the cats had been well cared for by my mom. Afer unpacking we dropped the rental SUV back at Hertz and since then he dogs have pretty much been sacked out from their fantastic journey and Susan and I have been pulling pictures taken off our cameras, including that 18-shot 180-degree view posted above of the south end of Eureka Valley and the dunes.

Without a doubt everything conspired — the weather, the lack of other people, the location, the light traffic out and back — to produce one of the best camping experiences ever. Plenty more pictures to come. Later.

First it’s back to the grind of doing dishes and sleeping in a real bed.

UPDATE (11.12): My Flickr photoset found here; Susan’s is here!